Fight for socialism against the dawn of the living dead jobs
Hannah Ponting, Liverpool Socialist Students
It’s no secret that an unemployment crisis has been looming over Britain for years.
The employment rate has been falling for the past two years, exposing the fragility of the capitalist system.
Young people entering the job market are particularly affected by this crisis. It has been reported that, for some entry-level jobs, as many as 141 graduates are competing for a single job. At the same time, one in seven young people are now currently unemployed.
This figure doesn’t even take into account the thousands of people trapped in precarious employment circumstances, such as those in exploitative zero-hour contacts, with no certainty as to their income from one month to the next, and little-to-no protection in case of sickness.
As we enter 2026, the situation is set to worsen. Economists warn that an increasing number of so-called ‘zombie firms’ are likely to collapse, as increased energy prices, an end to cheap credit, and increases to national insurance contributions ‘kill’ them off.
For defenders of capitalism, the closing of zombie firms may be masqueraded as good for the economy, but it is ultimately workers that bear the price of their collapse with mass redundancies.
This incoming crisis is not the result of bad managements or unfortunate timing. It flows directly from the short-term, profit-driven logic of capitalism.
So to fight this crisis we have to fight against capitalism itself. Workers and young people can fight for a socialist future that guarantees jobs, pay and conditions and offers real possibilities for retraining. We should demand that any failing industries be nationalised under democratic workers’ control, and take the economic power held by the bosses into our own hands to plan to provide a decent job, housing and standard of living for all.
Gone forever is the world where capitalist regimes – chief among them the US regime – could confidently pretend to defend ‘justice and democracy’ internationally.
The brutal state execution of anti-ICE protesters in Minneapolis. Trump’s kidnapping of Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro. Threats of escalating trade wars in pursuit of acquiring Greenland. Trump’s to-the-point honesty in declaring his actions a defence of the economic and strategic interests of American imperialism, illustrates the dangerous and volatile world that capitalism in its era of decay and decline has created.
The brutal truth of the cut-throat competition, conflict and war inherent to capitalism – which capitalist world leaders previously promised us had been consigned to the dustbin of history – is being reasserted. All the capitalist world leaders are scrambling to rearm, in many countries funded by even more brutal cuts to public spending.
The Middle East is increasingly in turmoil. Over two years of genocidal slaughter in Gaza by the Israeli state has been aided and abetted by all the ‘good and the great’ of the capitalist world, including Starmer’s Labour.
Following the so-called ceasefire in Gaza last October, the Israeli army continues to kill Palestinians. It has been reported that between 10 October 2025 and 15 January 2026, the Israeli government violated the ceasefire agreement 1,244 times, pushing the death toll over 71,000.
Trump has since unveiled his proposed ‘Board of Peace’ to rule over Gaza. At the time of writing, representatives from 35 nations have signed up, which is dominated by Trump and his political allies in the US. Unsurprisingly, there is so far no representation whatsoever for any Palestinian body – or for that matter representatives of the working class of any country.
Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ will not deliver peace for the Palestinian people, let alone a decent quality of life, with genuine national and democratic rights.
Needed is the building of workers’ strength through the development of mass independent workers’ organisations – trade unions and parties. Through mass struggles with the aim of removing capitalism in Israel-Palestine, an independent, socialist Palestinian state can be realised, alongside a democratic socialist Israel, as part of a voluntary, equal socialist confederation in the Middle East.
In Britain, we also need a political alternative to all the pro-war, pro-austerity capitalist parties. A party which is rooted in the most powerful force for socialist change in society, the working class, and its organisations – the trade union movement, with over 6 million members.
Building such a mass workers’ party, armed with a programme for socialist change, would not only be able to challenge Starmer’s war and austerity agenda, but could give solidarity and assistance to the struggles of the long-suffering masses of Palestine and the Middle East as a whole.
Two Herts Socialist Students members organised a sit-in in December to advocate for a Palestinian student, who had been denied an offer by the higher-ups at the University of Hertfordshire, for discriminatory reasons.
The student had been granted a series of phone-call interviews to assess their English language abilities, rather than sitting a conventional English language test, due to their circumstances living through the genocide, and currently living in a camp in Gaza.
No management understanding
However, these interviews put them at an unfair disadvantage. Management failed to show any understanding for the student’s lived experiences:
Damaged infrastructure in Gaza, causing poor phone reception
Immense pressure of their family’s and their own future at stake
Inappropriate and inconsiderate questions, such as “what’s your favourite food?”, and “what do you like to do in your spare time?” to someone suffering through starvation and frequent displacements
Herts Socialist Students recognised this institutionalised racism against international students, and decided to take action, acting as last-minute unofficial advocates for the student’s case.
By sheer luck, we met the heads of the uni’s International Office in person. They told us there was nothing we could do. We informed them we would not leave until we had the opportunity to advocate properly.
After several meetings that day, we convinced them to give the applicant a third interview, with questions that were trauma-informed, and took their circumstances into account. They passed with flying colours.
Mass movement
The fact that two students were able to have such a large impact on their decision highlights the sheer disregard for the lives of international students, which was demonstrated with the original decision. The uni insisted it was not negotiable, until it was.
We can stand up to oppression, and unchallenged unelected bureaucrats on campus. If only two students were able to have such an immediate impact, the possibilities for mobilising on other issues are huge.
Student life leaves a lot to be desired right now. Before we even make it to university, tuition fees get hiked year by year. When we’re on campus studying, it’s under precarious conditions with cuts to resources and staff. When we get home from campus, our housing is untenable, leaving us vulnerable to exploitative landlords. When we graduate, obscene student debt burdens us, and youth unemployment is rising.
And every step of the way, we are onlookers to a world in crisis. Trump’s imperialist agenda threatens further conflict and war; it fuels further economic instability which the bosses will try to make the working class and young people pay the price for; the ravaging consequences of climate change continue to worsen. And here, Keir Starmer’s government continues to attack workers and young people. Starmer dined with the King and Trump at Windsor Castle in September, while thousands in Gaza starved.
That is why, across uni campuses, colleges and schools, Socialist Students is fighting back. We are campaigning to defend our education from government and bosses’ attacks, and fighting for decent housing, free education and socialist change.
It’s clear to see why capitalism is losing favour among younger generations. It is a system which values profit over people, and that concentrates wealth into the few, depriving the many. It offers no promising future for young people.
That’s what was behind the initial enthusiasm for Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s Your Party, as well as for new Green Party leader Zack Polanski’s ‘eco-populist’ platform against inequality and injustice.
Socialist Students is an organisation in which students can come together to explore socialist ideas and get involved fighting for them. We organised walkouts of school, college and uni students to protest against Trump’s state visit to the UK last year. We have led the fightback for fully funded free education under the Funding Not Fees campaign. We have fought alongside our teachers and other education staff defending jobs and our education. We have taken part in the mass protests against the slaughter or Palestinians in Gaza. And we are part of the fight for a new mass party that fights for young people and workers, and for socialist change.
On 14 February, the Socialist Students National Conference will take place in Manchester. It will discuss a new constitution to prepare for the road ahead of widespread youth and student struggles and protests.
If you want to fight for your future, for an alternative, this is the opportunity to express yourself and be heard.
In December, I helped to get a motion passed into Cardiff University Students Union policy, mandating it to lobby the university to ‘open the books’ to its finances, stop academic cuts by using its hundreds of millions of pounds of reserves, and campaign against cuts.
Cardiff University announced 400 job cuts in 2025 to fill a supposed £30 million deficit in its budget. Job cuts have since been reduced to 286, thanks to campaigning from trade unions, academics, and students.
Socialist Students’ president candidate Aris Prevost voiced these demands in the student union (SU) election last spring. He gained 340 votes, however, did not win.
Not to be put off, Socialist Students successfully backed me in the autumn SU elections this academic year, and I was elected to the Student Senate, the SU’s policymaking body.
Our anti-cuts motion was passed by Senate, with 88% of the vote – mandating the elected full-time sabbatical team of the student union. Another three motions are due to be voted on by Senate in February.
Hertfordshire Socialist Students joined a collective of local organisations opposing racism, marching through the town, under the banner of ‘Herts Not Hate’. We were responding to rising anti-refugee and anti-migrant action in Hertfordshire, where several temporary accommodation hotels are located.
As we build for the Socialist Students conference on 14 February in Manchester, Herts Socialist Students is focused on strengthening links with organised workers locally, and highlighting the role students play in community action.
I spoke at the rally on behalf of Herts Socialist Students. I also shared the success of a recent sit-in by two Herts Socialist Students in defence of a Gazan university applicant, who had initially been unfairly denied an offer. As a result of the action, the university met our demands, and the applicant has now been offered a place at the University of Hertfordshire.
The speech by Morgan Tritton, Hertfordshire Socialist Students
“Students of Hertfordshire and the workers of Hertfordshire, fighting together against austerity, war, and all forms of oppression.
Higher education is in crisis. And Labour’s answer is just to push the costs onto us – the students and staff, while the rich get richer.
So, Socialist Students is saying we want to take the wealth off the super-rich, and put it to use. Fund education properly, abolish tuition fees, cancel student debt, and bring back real maintenance grants that rise with inflation.
And make education a public right, not a privilege or a big business. We’ve shared this message of ‘Funding Not Fees’ across campus.
And, in the last year, we have got considerable backing from the students. Starting with just four [Socialist Student members at Herts] last year, we’re now at nearly 100.
Our major campaign in the last year has been to end sexism and violence against women on campus. By ensuring prevention, training, and awareness is in place. But also signposting and support for victims is properly funded.
We passed a motion in student council to fight for this. But the university has responded with apathy and even refusal to back down from their non-compliance in providing quality anti-harassment and sexual misconduct training to all students.”
A US Federal agent shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis, USA on 7 January. Videos widely circulated online show Renee using her car to block a road in the city, in solidarity with her neighbours, to obstruct immigration raids carried out by ICE.
Already this autumn, tens of thousands of school students in North Carolina walked out in protest. This latest brutal killing will spur more protests. Under Trump’s instructions, ICE agents terrorise working-class neighbourhoods and workplaces across the US. Workers are organising to defend their communities and co-workers.
And the cost-of-living squeeze for ordinary Americans grinds on. No president has ever become so unpopular so quickly. Trump has already faced the two biggest single-day protests in US history.
Already this year, Trump has kidnapped the Venezuelan President and threatened to take ownership of Greenland – both blatant attempts to pursue US capitalist interests. Including the pursuit of access to oil ahead of their biggest rival, China. The plunge towards deeper climate crisis continues.
Beyond his so-called ‘backyard’, Trump has threatened intervention into Iran. Mass protests have erupted, fuelled by a rising cost of living and the brutal experience of a repressive regime. Reportedly thousands have been killed by state forces, including 23-year-old student Rubina Aminian, shot in the back of the head at close range.
Youth and workers in Iran can in no way rest hopes on a Trump intervention to help them to pursue their aims. They must get organised to settle their own scores with the theocratic regime.
Trump’s second presidency is an accelerator of world instability and crisis. The world is simmering with uprisings and protests – including those led by youth and students, so called ‘Gen Z protests’, bringing down governments and regimes in Nepal, Madagascar and Bulgaria, for example. Millions have protested against the Israeli state’s slaughter in Gaza, including those who took part in a general strike in Italy in September.
When the red carpet was rolled out for Trump at Windsor Castle by Keir Starmer in September, Socialist Students helped to organise school and college walkouts. Building our own struggles of workers and young people, including a new workers’ party to challenge Starmer’s Labour and fight for a decent future for young people in Britain, is the most effective act of solidarity young people and students take with those fighting for change internationally.
If you’re angry at Trump and Starmer, and the capitalist crisis they represent – get organised!
Come to Socialist Students conference in Manchester
The Socialist Students annual conference is taking place in Manchester on 14 February. Members will be voting on the adoption of a new constitution, as well as debating the role we can play, fighting for socialist ideas in the student movement.
The huge enthusiasm for Corbyn and Sultana’s Your Party in the summer, and for Zack Polanski’s leadership of the Green Party shows the huge appetite for socialist ideas. This conference will help us sharpen our understanding of the political processes taking place, and prepare us for the opportunities and challenges of getting stuck into the struggles ahead.
The capitalist system offers no way forward for young people. In fact, by trying to look after the profits of the bosses, governments like Keir Starmer’s are attacking young and working-class people. We anticipate significant student movements in the coming years, and want Socialist Students to be prepared to play a role in leading those struggles.
We have already tested our ability to lead youth movements by organising hundreds of students walking out against Trump in September, when Starmer’s government and the King rolled out the red carpet for the president.
We want to get as many students as possible, prepared to help get organised and fight for socialist ideas, to come to this conference.
In Birmingham, we have organised to hire a people carrier to get our Socialist Students members to Manchester. There are a few benefits of this over individual transport. First, it is slightly cheaper for each passenger to pay their share for car hire than to buy a train ticket. Second, attendees are more likely to make a firm commit to come if they pay up front to confirm their place with us, rather than facing the additional and more expensive hurdle of having to organise their own transport. Third, it will give us a chance to discuss politics and the proposed constitution together on the journey.
Our activities on campus will include leafleting and organising our usual fortnightly meetings. These meetings focus on issues which students are engaged in. Our first meeting back after Christmas is discussing Trump’s abduction of Nicolás Maduro, and the character of the Chavez-Maduro governments.
Another practical measure we have taken is creating and updating a beautifully colour-coded spreadsheet of contacts gathered from meetings and stalls this year. In the coming weeks we will be contacting all 80+ names on the spreadsheet to encourage them to come along to the conference.
I encourage all to push for maximum participation in this conference, reaching out to every student we have met this year, including members of other socialist-adjacent student societies, to get as broad a layer of youth along as possible. Building strong foundations for us to play a role in futures struggles of youth and students.
Penelope Dawber, Preston Socialist Students
Preston Socialist Students members at University of Lancashire (UCLan) and Cardinal Newman College are working extremely hard to prepare for Socialist Students conference. In just three short months, we have formed a society at the university and are on the way to one at the college. We have been out campaigning, including helping organise a counter-demo to a far-right organised anti-immigration protest.
But we’re not slowing down this new year! Ahead of the conference, some of us are going to the UCU strike at Lancaster and Morecambe College against unfair, below-inflation pay rises. We plan to speak to students about why they should support their teachers on strike, and join them in a fight for decent, fully funded education.
On 17 January, we are joining a march through Preston against the Reform council’s planned closure of several nurseries and care homes across Lancashire, organised by local authority trade union Unison. There we will be making a call for a workers’ budget conference in the city, to draw up a council budget that would meet the needs of our communities. We are also planning meetings to discuss the draft constitution documents for Socialist Students, to be voted on at the conference, including to discuss any comments or amendments that we wish to make.
We are going to advertise the conference with campaign stalls at the college and uni. Using our position as an official society, we will try to get the Students Union to advertise the conference.
When we hold our next meetings we will also be discussing transport down to the conference. Even though in Preston we are still only small, we are having a big impact, and our new members can be thanked for that!
Saturday 14 February 2026, 10am-5pm
University Place @ University of Manchester (176 Oxford Rd, Manchester M13 9PL)
As a new semester begins, millions of students in higher education continue to face the brunt of the cost-of-living crisis. Maintenance loans fall short of covering basic living costs, leaving many students struggling to meet essential expenses.
For most students, rent is the biggest cost. Student housing companies and private landlords drive up rents year on year, and the quality of the housing only gets worse. In many cities, students pay through the nose for small rooms in cramped, unsafe, and poorly maintained houses.
After rent, many students are forced to take on multiple part-time jobs to afford the rest, which has a direct impact on grades and wellbeing. The rising cost of groceries means students skip meals to save money. Financial pressure also has an impact on students’ mental health. Surveys show that 78% of students experience significant stress as a result of financial worries. Students are cutting back on socialising and extracurricular activities because they cannot afford to take part.
Furthermore, tuition fees will continue to rise every year, amounting to over £10,000 by the end of this government. This is a result of Starmer’s Labour government refusing to fund higher education, blaming the financial instability of universities on the previous tuition fee cap to justify forcing the costs onto millions of students.
Therefore, the frustration of students and young people must be directed into organising a socialist fightback. Socialist Students groups are organising demonstrations, supporting striking workers on pickets, and building support for socialist ideas on campuses. Socialist Students calls for fully funded, free education, instead of more fees and cuts.
This week from Wednesday 14 to Friday 16 January, members of the University and College Union (UCU) will be taking industrial action over funding, pay and conditions. College students face many issues due to the lack of funding. Our education suffers due to higher class sizes and overworked and underpaid staff. This is what striking UCU members are fighting against.
Socialist Students sends its full solidarity to all UCU members taking strike action and our members will be on the picket lines in support. We will stand alongside workers fighting back against the funding crisis to fight for the education we deserve.
Socialist Students 